June 25, 2010: A Good Kind of Tired

I got up at five-thirty this morning, made the coffee and had a cup, then headed out to the garden. Our hot weather has finally arrived, and I had a lot to do before it hit 90 or higher.

I picked the raspberries that I'd forgotten to pick last night, then I picked the last of the peas and tore out the vines and put them in the composter. I added a couple of inches of composted manure to the bed and turned it all under. Then I spread another inch over the top of the bed, along with a handful of 10-10-10 dried chicken poo with minerals and stuff in it, and worked it into the top six inches. I raked it nice and smooth, then made a trench along the back for another planting of pole beans. This time I planted some seeds I'd saved from last year's Kentucky Blue. I don't care if I get Kentucky Wonder or Blue Lake or a cross between the two, they're all good. Since I'd only planted a single row of the pole beans, I had plenty of room in front of them to plant something else. The early beets had not done well at all, so I decided to try another planting. I finished off my packet of Red Ace Hybrid, and had to use a few Bull's Blood seeds to complete the double row.

Future pole beans and beets in the former pea patch. I had five marigold seedlings that needed to find a home, so I put them on each side of the Spacemaster cucumber that's in the bucket on the right. It might be too shady there when the pole beans, cucumbers and morning glories cover the fencing, but I had nowhere else to put them right now.

Once the former pea bed was planted, I tidied up the kennel garden and the area behind it, between the kennel and the neighbor's fence. I deadheaded the Arlene Francis rose, which is doing very well this year. The rose bush is over twenty years old, and has never been over two feet high, with maybe three canes, and it's a lucky year I get more than four or five roses on it. It's still not very big, but looking healthier than it ever has, and is loaded with blossoms. I attribute it to the fact the compost bin sat right next to it last year!

Arlene Francis is three feet tall and blooming her branches off! Both the rose and the volunteer tomato in front of it were given a bit of fertilizer. Those are morning glories in the bucket on the left. They should climb up and cover the corner of the kennel garden in gorgeous blue flowers.

The kennel garden, all cleaned up. There are more morning glories growing behind the park bench, along with a few forget-me-nots that may or may not decide to grow. Some volunteer borage is on the right of the bench, a Red Acre cabbage and some white alyssum on the left. Fortex beans are climbing the left fence. One of these days I'm going to find time to actually sit on that bench!

It was about this time that Mr. Granny called me in for breakfast. He'd cooked sausages, so I had a couple, along with some toasted oatmeal bread and home made strawberry jam from last year's garden. I finished eating, then poured myself a cup of coffee to take back out to the garden, 'cause it was still cool enough to work, and I was on a roll!

I harvested some broccoli, and hoed a few grass blades from the broccoli bed. I fertilized the little Green Grape tomato that is growing by the fence. Then I raked the paths in the east garden. As I was heading back from the compost pile, I decided to check the progress of the Contender bush beans. Eureka! I went back to the house for my little stool and a bowl, and ended up with 1-1/4 pounds of beans! I should weigh Annie and Otto before and after trips to pick beans, as they'll eat as many as I'll give them. I'm sure it would add to my total bean weight!

My first bowl of beans for 2010.

Then, of course, there was lettuce to cut. I noticed the plant I thought was a Buttercrunch actually had headed up and was a second Anuenue! I cut it and another Austrian Red.

The harvest for the day was finished, the entire corner of the garden was spiffy clean, and it was getting into the high 80s. I set a sprinkler to water the newly planted bed, and headed for the house to clean, weigh and photograph all the produce.

Outer lettuce leaves for our rabbit, and tender hearts of the lettuce for Mr. and Mrs. Granny.

A bunch of broccoli, a bowl of raspberries and a cup of peas.

I've decided I'm not planting peas again. I got a total of 18 ounces of shelled peas from an 8 square foot planting (one whole seed packet), and I got 20 oz. of bush beans from just one (first) picking on the same amount of square footage, and used just under one packet of seeds. I can buy a large package of frozen, organic, petite peas at Costco, and the flavor is just as good if not better. Peas are too labor intensive for the end result. I will, however, plant sugar snap peas again.

The refrigerator was full of garden produce, so it was time for another "garden dinner". I decided on stir fry again, as it makes use of the most veggies.

We had teriyaki chicken stir fry, using onions, carrots, broccoli and sugar snap pods. I sliced the sugar snaps and cooked them a bit more for this dish. The crispy ones squeak on my teeth, and it's annoying! I made fried brown rice, using onion, carrot and peas from the garden. Salad was chilled Anuenue lettuce with balsamic vinegar dressing. As usual, I had craisins and walnuts on mine. Lemonade is a necessity on hot days, but only because I ran out of tea. Soon I'll be making iced tea by the gallon.

We didn't eat the raspberries today. I'm saving them to make a raspberry cream cheese pie. We won't get many more berries this year, so I wanted to make at least one special dessert from them before they're no longer producing.

********Toni, thank you. No the hollyhocks haven't bloomed yet, but they are really growing. They are about two feet tall now. I've read they usually don't bloom the first year if they are planted in the spring, that I should have planted them last fall for blossoms this year. I hope they are wrong!

It always feels so good to get so much done! Now you will be rolling in the beans daily! My kids were happy to see me pull out the bean bushes last week, they were so sick of them! We have plenty in the freezer now to last until my next planting is ready, heehee. I think that's why my cosmos soared to about 7 ft tall last year - they were big to begin with, but skyrocketed being planted next to the compost bin!

Ribbit, I didn't have that problem with the purple beans, but all beans squeak for me if I don't cook them half to death. I just hate it! I don't know, maybe we could coat our teeth with Vaseline or something ;-)

********Robin, I did sleep well. I had plans on rising early again this morning, but it didn't happen. I woke up, looked at the clock and rolled right back over and to sleep.

********Rachel, I'd planned another day out today, but I'm out of composted manure for another bed, so I think I'll go shopping this morning and garden tomorrow.

********Lee, I'm sad that my raspberries are coming to an end. I'm really considering another bed of them next year, but would plant an everbearer or fall bearing variety to extend my season.

********Erin, I have as many beans growing as I can find space for, because both of my dogs eat them every day. I really need lots of them in the freezer...like 365 cups of them! They each get a roasted (or crockpotted) chicken thigh with 1/2 cup of green beans daily.

It looks lovely! You must be on the warm side of the state, as I think of the PNW as being colder. I have to wait until just a little later in the morning or it's too cold to really enjoy being outside here in June -- May of course is hot. Weird.I'm inspired. As soon as I'm done catching up here, I'll go tidy and blog.

Granny, you just crack me up with your comments like the one about doing before/after weighing of your dogs. :) Once again, I'm just in awe of your garden and all the work you do in it. I wish my garden was that big/bountiful for me to have that much work to do! I started out small, and it got even smaller after the bunnies ate half of them (I just blogged about it today!)

thyme2garden, I started my garden large, and it's getting smaller. When my kids were growing up, my garden was probably around a quarter acre, maybe larger. Of course, that's when we lived a ways out of town, and had the property to grow it all on.

I'm learning to like all my veggies tender-crisp. I grew up eating vegetables that were cooked to death. I won't even touch a canned veggie any more, I much prefer fresh or frozen. It wasn't too many years ago that I didn't like anything frozen, except peas or corn, and ate canned veggies all winter.

Dan, they take up too much valuable garden real estate for what they produce. I need to find a smaller variety of broccoli, too. I'm sold on those tiny Gonzalez cabbages that only take up one square foot of space.